Donald Conroy; Father of ‘Great Santini’ Author

Donald Conroy, 77, the real-life model for the book and motion picture “The Great Santini.” A native of Chicago who dropped out of college to become a career Marine, Conroy flew missions in the Pacific during World War II and later served in Korea and Vietnam. He was to outsiders a bigger-than-life military hero who took the nickname the Great Santini from a magician whom he admired as a child. But the 1976 autobiographical novel “the Great Santini” by his eldest son, Pat Conroy, revealed the father to be a brute who verbally and physically abused his wife and seven children. Donald Conroy disappeared for three days in shame after the book was published, transformed himself and became what his author son later described as the perfect father. Robert Duvall portrayed Conroy in the 1979 film “The Great Santini.” On Saturday in Beaufort, S.C., of colon cancer.